Earth-Sized Exoplanet With Fiery Volcanoes Discovered in Habitable Zone
The planet, named LP 791-18 d, was located and observed using data from NASA’s Tess satellite and the Spitzer Space Telescope. A team of scientists…
Spitzer Space Telescope News
The Spitzer Space Telescope, part of NASA’s Great Observatories program, was launched in 2003 to study the universe in infrared light. This sophisticated observatory was designed to detect and study objects ranging from our solar system to the distant reaches of the universe, including remote galaxies, nascent star clusters, and nascent planets. Equipped with a cryogenically cooled telescope and sensitive instruments, Spitzer was pivotal in providing detailed imagery and data that helped astronomers understand the composition of celestial objects, map out star-forming regions, and observe the formation of galaxies. Although its cryogenic mission ended in 2009 when it ran out of coolant, Spitzer continued to operate until 2020 in a “warm” phase, still producing significant scientific insights with its remaining two channels.
Volcano World: Earth-Size Planet Discovered by Astronomers May Be Carpeted With Volcanoes
Astronomers have discovered an Earth-sized exoplanet, LP 791-18 d, believed to be highly volcanic. The planet’s volcanic activity could sustain an atmosphere potentially allowing for…
Baby Star “Burps” Tell Tales of Surprisingly Frantic Feeding – “It’s Literally the Process of Star Creation in Real-Time”
The youngest stars often shine in bright bursts as they consume material from surrounding disks. Newborn stars “feed” at a furious rate and grow through…
NASA Discovers Pair of Super-Earths With 1,000-Mile-Deep Oceans
NASA’s Hubble and Spitzer Find Two Exoplanets May Be Mostly Water In the 1995 post-apocalyptic action film “Waterworld” Earth’s polar ice caps have completely melted,…
A Cosmic Tale of Death & Dust Revealed in Orion Constellation
In a tale of cosmic proportions, the region is being transformed by the massive stars that live and die within it. A new image combining…
Ultra-Hot “Super-Earth” Exoplanet 65 Light-Years Away Could Have No Atmosphere
Researchers have closely studied GJ 1252 b, a “super-Earth” exoplanet discovered in 2020, and suggest it may have a minimal or even non-existent atmosphere due…
Incredibly Sharp Webb Space Telescope Test Images Hint at New Possibilities for Science
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is aligned across all four of its science instruments, as seen in a previous engineering image showing the observatory’s full…
“Space Butterfly” Is Actually a Nursery for Hundreds of Baby Stars
What looks like a red butterfly in space is in reality a nursery for hundreds of baby stars, revealed in this infrared image from NASA’s…
NASA Spots Gigantic Debris Cloud Created by Clashing Celestial Bodies
Major smashups between rocky bodies shaped our solar system. Observations of a similar crash give clues about how frequent these events are around other stars….
Hot Jupiter Exoplanet Provides New Insights Into Seasons on a Planet Outside Our Solar System
Observations of a hot Jupiter may also advance our understanding of planet origins and evolution. Imagine being in a place where the winds are so…
Scores of Baby Stars Revealed in the Orion Constellation
NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope provides an infrared glimpse into the NGC 2174 or “Monkey Head” Nebula, uncovering young stars forming amidst dust columns in the…
NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope Illuminates Exoplanets
Recent studies using Spitzer Space Telescope data have explored atmospheric changes in brown dwarfs and the migration and internal heating of hot Jupiters like XO-3b,…
Godzilla Nebula: A “Monster” Star-Forming Region Spied by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope
Just like clouds on Earth, clouds of gas and dust in space can sometimes resemble familiar objects, or even popular movie creatures. Do you see…
A Cosmic Powder Keg: When a Stable Star Explodes
The supernova remnant G344.7-0.1 is across the Milky Way about 19,600 light-years from Earth. It belongs to a class of supernovas called “Type Ia” that…
Hidden Supernova: Stars Are Exploding in Dusty Galaxies – We Just Can’t Always See Them
Exploding stars generate dramatic light shows. Infrared telescopes like Spitzer can see through the haze and to give a better idea of how often these…
“Failed Stars” Caught Speeding: Astronomers Clock the Fastest-Spinning Brown Dwarfs
Astronomers at Western University have discovered the most rapidly rotating brown dwarfs known. They found three brown dwarfs that each complete a full rotation roughly…
New Worlds in a River of Young Stars Discovered by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite
Using observations from NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), an international team of astronomers has discovered a trio of hot worlds larger than Earth orbiting…
3D Map of Cosmic Neighborhood Created With Help From Worldwide Network of Citizen Scientists
Scientists tapped into the worldwide network of volunteers using Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 to map dozens of new brown dwarfs, or balls gas not heavy…